‘When they become PM, they realize how utterly dependent Israel is on the US’

[shira]

....Perhaps most interestingly, he displays a highly empathetic, even forgiving, attitude to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who as opposition leader relentlessly critiqued Rabin for rehabilitating Arafat, helping to create a domestic climate of bitter hostility to Rabin. “Netanyahu opposed Rabin when he didn’t know anything,” says Haber.

And what is it that the Likud leader didn’t know 20 years ago, that he does know as prime minister today? That only when you make it to the Prime Minister’s Office, says Haber, do you understand the extent to which Israel “is dependent on America. For absolutely everything — in the realms of diplomacy, security, even economically… Slowly your tone changes, because you understand that without the spare parts [from the US], your entire air force is grounded. And when you have no air force you have no defenses. You can barely do anything without America. Her diplomatic support, defensive support, economic support. We are in America’s little pocket.”

Haber, who first met Rabin when working as a journalist in the IDF, is a regular columnist at Yedioth Ahronoth, with a variety of other business interests. His features have not changed much over the past 20 years — or more pertinently the past 18, since that terrible night, November 4, 1995, when he emerged from Ichilov Hospital to tell Israel and the world, “The government of Israel announces in dismay, in great sadness, and in deep sorrow, the death of prime minister and minister of defense Yitzhak Rabin, who was murdered by an assassin, tonight in Tel Aviv.”

The following are excerpts of our interview, conducted in Ramat Gan ahead of the Oslo anniversary:

The Times of Israel: Twenty years after the handshake, tell me, when you look back at the historical process — did we destroy it, did they?

Eitan Haber: First of all, I was the only one in the prime minister’s bureau who objected to the idea — for one very simple reason: I didn’t believe that with one signature, with one ceremony, it would be possible to overcome more than 100 years of terror and spilled blood. You need years, even decades, of education. In spite of that, I think this event, the Oslo Accords, was possibly the most important turning point and milestone in the history of the State of Israel since the founding of the state, for one simple reason. It removed the masks from all of our faces — Israelis and Palestinians alike.

more @ http://www.timesofisrael.com/when-they-become-pm-they-realize-how-utterly-dependent-israel-is-on-the-us/

[inch4progress]

1. Whoever killed Rabin didn't want a two-state solution, thats for sure!

The Palestinians and Israelis are paying the price today!

In Jewish communities throughout Israel and the Diaspora, everyone remembers where they were the night Yitzhak Rabin was killed. Fourteen years ago, Israel's JFK moment occurred, and the country has never fully recovered from the massive blow dealt to the fabric of Israeli society. With three bullets, assassin Yigal Amir managed to irreversibly derail the peace process, as well as drive a wedge through the heart of the political system, splitting left from right and religious from secular in an unparalleled act of division.

The settler camp continue to brand anyone disagreeing with their views as a traitor (such as Shimon Peres), a self-hating Jew (Uri Avnery), or an antisemite (Barack Obama), and call for direct action to put a stop to their "crimes against the Jewish people". Religious self-righteousness is a powerful intoxicant, and more often than not proves a highly potent ingredient to throw into the already incendiary mix of domestic politics. At the same time, even the secular nationalists in Israel – fronted by Avigdor Lieberman and his Yisrael Beitenu brigade – think nothing of branding the entire Israeli-Arab community as mutinous fifth columnists, paving the way for demonisation and distortion to fill the void left by previously-level headed approaches to the regional conflict.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/oct/30/yitzhak-rabin-israel-far-right

[King_David]

2. I'm sure nobody disagrees with that statement ,

" Whoever killed Rabin didn't want a two-state solution"

Stating the obvious .

[Israeli]

3. thanks for posting this ....

The Palestinians and Israelis are paying the price today!

yes we are .

I was there that night with all of my family , we arrived in convoys of buses from the kibbutzim in our area , young and old .... so full of hope .
Shattered dreams .

Eitan Haber wants to forgive Bibi .... that is his prerogative .
Rabin's wife never did .... and neither will I .

You want to learn more inch4progress ..... I suggest this for further reading :

MURDER IN THE NAME OF GOD
The Plot to Kill Yitzhak Rabin
@ http://www.michaelkarpin.com/Books/Book2/Michael_Karpin_Book2.html

[delrem]

4. So, what exact faction benefited most from those three bullets? nt

[inch4progress]

5. No one really benefited.

I think they have mistaken "radicalism" with progress. Rabin might have brought peace and the fat right doesn't want peace. They want an authoritarian religious state where everyone thinks and acts the same. I guess that's progress in the minds of the authoritarian radicals. SADLY.

[Israeli]

6. The Right delrem ....

.....or those that prefer the term Jews over that of Israelis .

See :


Rabin’s Assassination Marked
The End of an Era

Consensus has it that [assassin Yigal] Amir also shot the unity of the nation, both the authentic and the artificial one. It was with an eye toward that nation that the tribes once attempted to unite, around the bonfire of patriotism, despite disagreements — over who was closer to the fire and who was at its edge. But after those three shots, people no longer wanted any longer to embrace those who didn’t think like them or hold their opinions. The masks came off. It is therefore possible to honestly claim that Yigal Amir murdered “Israeliness.” Today, Israelis still most certainly exist — it’s even quite hard to miss them — but “Israeliness” is no longer. Not its old, beautiful form.

The facts are that the disconnect today from the Palestinians is total; the focus on an agreement of some sort has ended; the settlements are being fed by budgets; the [West Bank] outpost youth don’t fear anyone; patriotism has turned into nationalism manifested in ugly law proposals and racism (against Jews and gentiles alike); moral corruption is spreading throughout the entire nation; violence is flourishing, as is poverty and ignorance; the [rule of] law has disappeared and is no more. And if you think there is no connection between our miserable existential situation and the Rabin assassination, think again — the smoking gun of the general decline is Yigal Amir’s gun.

Imagine a secular Israel, enlightened and prosperous, advanced and united, that frequently gives its citizens reasons to be proud, and lives in peace with itself and with its neighbors. All this, Yigal Amir stole from you. And what you see outside — the crudeness, the racism, the aggressiveness, the violence, what people get away with from government ranks and downward — all that is what he left for you. That is the legacy of the smiling murderer: the death of Israeliness.

Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/culture/2012/11/the-death-of-israeliness.html#ixzz2gLojSiM2